Your Home Might Be A Prime Candidate For A Zoning System

Your Home Might Be A Prime Candidate For A Zoning SystemThe laws of physics make cooling an entire house to a single, uniform temperature virtually impossible. Hot air rises, which means that upper floors will remain warm long after the lower floors have cooled. Also, the sun will heat a house on one side in the morning and the other side in late afternoon. But still, the whole house’s temperature is regulated based on a single thermostat in a single room. So while that room is cooled to the perfect temperature, rooms in other parts of the house may be too warm or too cold, and a lot of energy is wasted adjusting the thermostat back and forth, trying to make the rest of the house comfortable. Fortunately, there’s an alternative: zoned cooling.

A zoning system divides up your home into sections or zones, based on their cooling needs. Each zone has its own programmable thermostat, and airflow is regulated according to each zone’s individual temperature. When a room is too warm, more air is directed to that zone. If it gets too cool, dampers scale back the air. This ensures uniform comfort throughout the house, while saving energy at the same time, since no zone is cooled more than necessary. Zones can also be turned on and off at will, depending on who’s home at any given time, and where they are in the house. If family members are watching TV in the family room or away from  home during the early evening, there’s no need to waste energy cooling the empty bedrooms. This reduction in energy consumption can reduce your annual energy bills by up to 25 percent.

Is zoned cooling right for your household? Here are some types of homes that are prime candidates for a zoning system:

  • Multi-story homes
  • Large, sprawling, ranch-style homes
  • Homes with add-ons or additional rooms, built separately from the rest of the house
  • Homes with large glass windows or doors that let in excess heat on one side of the house

For more information on zoning systems and other air conditioning issues, please contact the trained technicians at Overland Park Heating & Cooling, Inc. We’ve proudly served the Greater Kansas City area’s HVAC needs since 1983.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Overland Park, Kansas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock